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Miller's Magical Number
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We know that teaching vocabulary is an important part of WHAT to teach during the Giving It stage of B-SLIM. What may not come as easily is HOW to teach vocabulary. One thing to consider when teaching vocabulary is to limit the number of words being taught and break those words into meaningful chunks. If we look at the example of Jin, he does not realize that giving students 30 words to learn at one time can cause difficulties. If he were to consider Miller’s Magical Number (+/- 7) he may have more success teaching vocabulary. In this section we will discuss Miller’s Magical Number and how it applies to all aspects of teaching a second language. |
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What is Miller’s Magical Number?
People only have a finite amount of information that they can process and remember at any one time. Miller discovered in 1956 that the number 7 ± 2 seems to be the amount of elements (digits, letters, words or other units) that the working memory can handle. Though this number may seem limiting, it can be stretched by chunking information into relevant and related groups; one chunk can function as one element, thereby allowing for a greater amount of information to be processed.
What factors might affect the Magical Number?
When chunking information, the amount of information that can be grouped together depends on the element being grouped; for example, research indicated that more digits could be put into chunks than words, and more shorter length words could be put into a chunk than longer length words. The learner’s familiarity of words and ideas can also affect whether they could process more or less information.
How does Miller’s Magical Number relate to teaching?
Teachers must be aware of Miller’s Magical Number when planning their lessons so that they can best estimate how much information students can process in their working memory. Being aware of this means teachers have less of a chance of overloading students with information; it also reminds teachers that they should organize their material into relevant categories. Presenting the students with organized information allows the students to process more information with less work.
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Complete the attached exercise to learn more about Miller's Magical Number. |